Mike Westhoff, the Jets’ special-teams coach, has had his carefully researched list of free-agency targets ready to go for months. On Monday morning, he was staring at a roster on his office wall full of blank spots, and preparing to pick up the phone to start recruiting the players he wants the Jets to sign as soon as he is allowed. Across the country, some of the most prominent agents in the game were preparing to sleep in their offices, the better to manage the expected round-the-clock negotiations to come.
After nearly five months of inactivity by all but a handful of negotiators, the N.F.L. sprang to life again Monday when 32 player representatives voted unanimously to recommend approval of a 10-year labor deal that owners largely approved last Thursday. With an apology to the fans from the New England Patriots owner Robert K. Kraft, and the applause of a few spectators who had gathered on a sidewalk to witness the announcement, the process to lift the lockout was put in motion. The longest work stoppage in the game’s history thus ended with only the loss of the Hall of Fame exhibition game.
After the final details were worked out Monday morning, the lawyers who were the pre-eminent figures of the unusual off-season finally gave way to coaches and players desperate to get on the field and to an expected frenzy of player signings and trades the likes of which the N.F.L., normally a model of meticulously planned stasis, has never experienced. Rookies can start signing contracts and every other free agent can begin negotiating them Tuesday, when trades can also begin; teams will start opening training camps Wednesday; and Friday, about 400 free agents can begin joining new teams — five months of activity being funneled into just a few weeks.
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